Are their any recovering/former hikkomoris on here? I am one and want to know if anyone has similar experiences. Do any support groups exist for hikkomoris?
yeah, i'm recovering.. mostly recovered. I don't know if there are any support groups outside of japan... probably not? Usually i'm fine being around people now, but there are still lots of days when i feel anxious to some extent about having to go places.
If by former hikikomori you mean once was a dependent, self-hating, isolated shut-in but now respects themselves and can function independently in public without fear, then yes.
I guess you could call me a 'hikki'. I dropped out of high school at 16 and spent the following year shut my room, leaving only occasionally to visit the fridge. I'm almost 18, and I just enrolled into a community college. I was never that social, but I'm a little nicer to people because that year gave me some time for introspection. That is, I'm nicer to people that deserve my respect. I just hate everyone else that much more.
I 'recovered' by a lengthy philosophical process, which basically equated to "get the fuck outside and try your luck, you're not an idiot and you know it".
I'm 27, and was home schooled which resulted in years of isolation. I am taking classes at a community college starting tomorrow, so wish me luck. My goal is to transfer asap and get a four year degree. I just got disgusted with being so apart from the world.
The more you do things, even just going for a walk, the easier it gets.
Dropping in to encourage everyone! Come on out! We'll be kind!
I recovered afte reading Gantz and realizing trough the main character that I wasted my life.
Don't set goals to high or too soon for yourself all at once, you might just feel miserable if you don't accomplish exactly what you set out to do.
Think of a woman who makes a new years resolution to lose 80 pounds and feels miserably guilty a week after for eating a quart of ice cream.
She should have resolved just to be more active, or watch what she eats.
Take each thing a step at a time and be proud of everything you accomplish.
I know you can do it.
Right. I don't know about you, but I found wasting my intellect doing nothing was a bit.... Boring.
I'm confused... so you decided to do nothing after finishing home school?
I'm always confused with how relatively older people (I mean after high school) can get away with doing nothing for such a long time. I think in Japan a lot of hikki are high school aged or so, but most of the 4-ch ones seem to be adults.
Anyway, I was homeschooled too, started taking a few community college classes during my last two high school years, spent four more years in CC after high school, and recently transferred to uni.
I've never really considered myself a hikki since although there were times I just wanted to do nothing and ended up staying home for a long time (like during summers and a semester of college I ended up missing), I had always wanted to move foward. I suppose you could say I was one during the years I was homeschooled, but if so it was unknowingly. Also, it's not my hatred or fear of the world or somesuch that's stopping me, but rather my lack of social skills.
I have taken steps to gain them, but I'm still quite far off. I still can't make friends or really even talk to people my own age, outside of formalities. Even formalities I usually try to avoid if I think they won't notice it. However... I guess I'm taking babysteps?
http://www.childresearch.net/RESEARCH/RECENT/ED_INFO/0305_0308.HTM
"Over a 12-month period, 6,151 cases of "hikikomori" (defined as withdrawal from society for six months or more) were registered at 697 public health centers across the country. Almost a third of the sufferers had been withdrawn for over three years and, in a final blow to the lingering impression that withdrawal is a childhood condition, half of the total were over 21 years old"
OP here. I'm encouraged by all the (positive) replies I got to this thread. I started college classes last summer. I would recommend starting slow. I only took 4 credits at first. And then I took 7 in the Fall and now I am still taking 7 with a part-time job.
>>7
It's HARD the first day and I felt disgusted with the school. The first time I tried I didn't go back until the next semester. So even if go and you have trouble the first time you can always go again next semester. I think I also had trouble with the cold weather so when I finally started taking classes in the summer semester the sun helped me wake up in the morning.
I have a question for former hikikomoris.
After recovering and returning to the work place/school what was the reaction you got from your peers? I'm specifically interested in the school yard but work place related answers are fine too.
I'm trying to go back to school but I've been told that technically I'm dead, at least to all the people at my school.
>>20
Sorry, I posted prematurely and still have a few things to say.
I'm recovering, however I have not gone back to High School but I'm attending a comunity college once a week. I've found it easier to attend the community college because it takes an hour to get there by train and there's nobody who knows me. Generally I'm concerned about what people are saying.
>>20 Thankfully I went right into the work place - nobody knew me. I got my high school diploma via a GED so I didn't have to re-attend school.
> I have a question for former hikikomoris.
I could easily qualify for that category but I don't like the label.
> Generally I'm concerned about what people are saying.
The short answer is: Don't be concerned with what you think people are saying.
Longer answer:
If no one knows you at college (or knows anyone who knows you) they have no way of knowing what you've been doing for the last few years. So worrying about that is pointless.
If you've isolated yourself for a long period of time, your social skills have probably atrophied. You might be a little awkward or seem strange to some people.
If there's something about yourself you can readily change to make yourself more easily accepted, do it, but don't dwell on what you can't change.
When I and my girlfriend broke up, I got depressed and withdrew from the world. Looking back, its an entire two years of my life(20-22) with nothing to show for it but 12 college credits and a bunch of computer stuff and a credit card bill that's presently bumraping me(24).
My parents chipped on me to get a job, but didn't push the issue and just kept depositing 1,200 bucks a month for my hikkomori pad and my pathetic attempt at a college education. I was losing every sort of skill I had and gaining weight.
Anyways, the thing that shy people need to realize is that no one cares. No one in your lecture hall cares if your hair is unkempt or you're a super-senior or whatever. Random campus tards might lol if you fall over or sit down in the wrong classroom, but they're not really going to remember a couple weeks later.
>>19
Hi this is >>7, and man are you right. My math is really low level, barely pre-algebra, and at times it alone makes me want to give up. And in English, while I have definitely learned things, I cannot help but think the topics I have to write essays about are dull and uninteresting.
And I just delivered a speech for my public speaking course in front of my class, without freaking out! So there is hope for me still.
>>23
Sorry I should have made it clearer. I was concerned about the people at my High School, I do have some people I know who attend the same school and they tell me people are making a big deal out of it.
Top student (I was fairly popular too) suddenly disapears for no apparent reason, I can't bring myself to go back and tell people why, due to the fact I'm not even sure why myself.
One day I just woke up and couldn't go to school.
>>22
Is there an Australian equvilent of the GED? I've tried looking around, but obviously I haven't been looking hard enough/or there isn't one.
This seems like one for aus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Tertiary_Admissions_Test
yup, STAT test :) It got me into uni. It's multiple choice, and extremely easy to score very high.
>>25
That is pretty much the exact same thing that happened to me! I had to take pre-algebra and then take algebra. It was very hard for me and I spent many,many,many hours in the math tutoring center getting help. English is also easy for me BUT SO FUCKING BORING. Update us on what's going on!
>>24
Well, I don't want to discourage anyone, but this isn't entirely true. I went to a college of 30,000 people, hoping that as long as I was nice when I interacted with people, I'd have nothing to worry about. I assumed people in college had better shit to do than make up stuff about others, but that's not entirely true. I tried the first one and a half semesters, got great grades the first and made it to a couple enjoyable parties, made a small set of friends I wasn't super-close, but very comfortable with. And then I started hearing the same whispers and giggles I had in middle in high school. I assumed I was paranoid, but eventually found out people were putting the same (untrue) shit on me they had before.
But, the key here is not to relapse. Just realise, everyone gets stuff made up about them at some time. You have to teach yourself (through a help group or meditiation) that it's the people you can trust that matter - it's them you'll be spending the most time with anyway. I stopped hanging out with people (I was actually not a shut-in until Sophomore year, I was paranoid but had friends in high school) and it only made things worse. It just gave people more of a chance to make up whatever they wanted, since others in the dorm didn't have any real me to compare it to.
You may want to pay for a small apartment. When you consider the mandatory meal plan with some colleges, it may be cheaper. I think my problem was an agriculture major and living in dorms, which group you with relatively small populations. You can do it, though. I've seen people more awkward than I be successful, you just have to ACT confident and not give up. Anyone can do it.
I hope you're being sarcastic, if not you're a moron. It's one thing to have an extreme social phobia but it's quite another to be proud of it and encourage others to sequester themselves away and live the same pitiful existence that you have tailored for yourself.
>>30
OP here. I live at home and go to college and I haven't had anyone make fun of me. Maybe living in dorms is prone to cause drama?
Man, I'm still trying to get out of this phase, and it's hard going. I just kind of floated into a secluded lifestyle about 3 years ago, and when all (literally, all) my friends started playing WoW, it made it that much worse. I eventually moved to try and start over (it was a small town), but kept the old habits way too long.
At least for me, the biggest problem has been irrational fear in social situations - which just takes some good failure to get over. You won't learn anything if you constantly stay in situations where you are 100% comfortable, whether it's with your best friends or at home in front of the interwebs, and you'll never grow as a person.
The thing that keeps coming back to me, what makes me go to the dojo, get on okcupid, say hi and smile (which kills me), go with my friends to the overcrowded bars, is what my stepdad used to say: "The world does not care about your happiness. It cares about your attendance record at work, your productivity, and your taxes. Happiness is something you have to make, from scratch, for yourself, and then share it with those around you."
>>"The world does not care about your happiness. It cares about your attendance record at work, your productivity, and your taxes. Happiness is something you have to make, from scratch, for yourself, and then share it with those around you."
So, we should get out of the house just because it's expected of us. Because it's what were "supposed to do".
That's encouraging.
Hardly, but OP is asking about former/recovering Hikikomoris, implying a set of people who found it to be unsatisfying...So, yeah, it's a somewhat reasonable idea to say that one such person might be interested in getting out of the house. They might even be interested in "social interaction".
And the whole point of the quote is that you're not doing what's expected of you; you're taking an interest in your own development as opposed to being a mindless cog who overlooks their own well-being. Now, whether you find happiness shut in at home 24 hours a day or out screaming "CITY NAME SPORTS TEAM BEEEEEEEEER HULAGULAGULAG" or somewhere in between (I'm looking for a dirty woman to talk astronomy to me), well, that's up to you. Just make sure that you're trying to seek some self-fulfillment and that you're not just floating on the waves hoping for everything to happen for you.
I have one more nit to pick with this poster, you are quoting something that wasn't even posted. You just put the phrase "a more useful life" in your post as if someone had said. This leads me to believe that you just assume you know what other people are going to say before it's been said, and that displays an unbelievable amount of arrogance. You probably weren't socially isolated by choice, I know I wouldn't want to hang around someone who puts words in my mouth.
>>34
OP here again,(this is making me contemplate getting a name)
WoW seems to be a big social skills killer. MMORPGS aren't my thing so I don't completely understand the allure but, I have heard so many stories of people's lives being ruined by them. I'd say to enjoy them in moderation...
Right now I go out and have fun with people and I've found that it helps being around people who AREN'T my own age. Older people seem more mature and they are usually less judgemental. Younger people also work but being suspected of being a pedo isn't very good for your ego.
I'm gonna be honest with you, it's not so great out here
When I stopped being a shut in I just charged out into the world and decided to do all the things I should've done in as little time as possible. Like getting a job, moving out, learning how to drive, finishing school etc
It made me super fucking stressed and I just wanted to die every night so i didn't have to face tomorrow
But it got better, eventually you stop caring what other people think of you
However, life isn't exactly great either, sometimes I feel like i'm on a road to a mediocre office job where I will spend the rest of my life, then retire, and i get real depressed that i'll ultimately achieve nothing
but then again, you can't exactly lead a hikki life forever...
ALL RIGHT LOOK:
Here's the dish.....I was once one of you. Hikikomori. As it is called.
I honestly never thought I would be...but I was. The last part of '05 to all of '06. I'd gotten back from Iraq doing the bullshit contracting thing.
Bounced around a few 'chans...spewing Right wing rhetoric, fascist ideology, and even helping a few people with my workshops.
I didn't bathe hardly...my hair grew long...I lost 40 pounds. I'd devolved into a bad place. My day was...
Listening to music, spewing fascist ideology, posting pictures of the same "figurehead" that reminded me of one of my past loves...and...helping people with my workshops and advice.
Then I started following my own. It's as simple as getting off your ass....
Now to be fair...I had some money so it wasn't a big deal to live a whole year doing jack shit. But the fact remains.
YOU NEED SOMEWHERE TO GO EVERYDAY AND SOMETHING TO DO. Getting paid for it helps. Seriously, you NEED SOMEWHERE TO GO AND SOMETHING TO DO.
I'm pretty antisocial, but you also need to talk to people.
Look...another thing. Set attainable goals. Get a job. Do it for a few months, even if it sucks. Just say "You know...I wish this shit would suck MORE!" and just be so fucking squared away that people take notice.
Get physically active. Don't be a body nazi, but fuck...walk at least a few miles every other day.
Don't fear rejection, don't fear acceptance.
Fear nothing but yourself, for you are the only thing that can be your undoing.
Just putting it out there.
>It's as simple as getting off your ass....
Really, it's not. If and when you suffer from a mental disorder along with this social impairment, just getting off your ass isn't as easy as it sounds.
I'm as crazy as they come(Probably crazier)
It really IS as simple as getting off your ass.
Realizing you are in a shitty sitch is the first step
Getting off your ass is the second.
Then...sky's the limit.
>>42 Dude it's not that simple, like said before some of us have personality disorders.I suffer from avpd which causes extreme anxiety at the work place. 30 years of this is simply hell.
>>42
if you were helping people with your worshops and such, and actively socialising, even electronically to the point of spewing facist ideology all over the place, not to mention it lasted not even a year and a half, I don't think that qualifies you as hikki. you jsut sound like an idiot who had a recluse period. It's a different thing to hikki's with real hikki problems.
I felt pretty real to me.
Sorry, but I think it really is all in just getting off your ass and facing up to the fact that the world is all one big assfuck and we all gotta take a turn.
I can come up with all kinds of social/mental disorders and even make up a few...but..seriously. It's all in getting off your ass and on your feet. Out of the shade and into the street.
Feel free to resume academia/the workplace/society.
>>48
My period lasted about 7 months. It is hard to tell where it ended and began. "the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines hikikomori as individuals who refuse to leave their parents' house, and isolate themselves away from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months"